In the Mood
by cagd
Summary: While having been dragooned into being Dawn's date at her troop's sponsored Sadie Hawkins Dance at a local senior citizen's home, Spike encounters a bit of unfinished business from 1943.
1. Chapter 1

_Hyperion Hotel, Room 515, Los Angeles, California, 1943_

There was enough of William left in Spike, or lately RAF Flight Officer William Tulley, formerly of St. John's Wood, London, aka "Willy", to want to make tonight as beautiful as he could.

There were candles.

There were flowers (well, a single black market orchid – such luxuries during wartime were scarce what with grenades, B-17s, and coffins being more of a priority – the rest were orange blossoms from some boob's private back yard orange grove, pilfered the previous morning before sunrise and carefully arranged around the dingy little room at the back of the Hyperion Hotel he'd taken over after having eaten the occupant a month back.)

There were nylon stockings, almost as good as money these days, if not better.

There was pale green silk lingerie draped across the opened, inviting bed.

There were chocolates, again not many because of wartime rationing, but he had his sources.

There were cigarettes.

There were oysters on a bed of cracked ice.

The blackout curtains had been pulled, turning the space into a very private lair.

And there was wine, opened and breathing along with two glasses, doctored.

There is, after all a profound difference between a meal and a transformation.

Spike, Willy, found Siring the few times he'd bothered, boring and gauche, preferring to let Drusilla do the dirty work whenever a patsy was needed. Meals, on the other hand, were mere emptyings, quickly cast aside like so many empty beer bottles – unless the girl had dark curls and a perfect oval face.

In that case, the meal would be prolonged, sometimes for hours with Spike finishing the job with relish once she finally wept knowing that she was dying in his cold embrace and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it.

No, tonight was different; this was no temporary staffing, or petty revenge. No, this was something to be anticipated and prepared for with as much nervous delight as the impending arrival of a new bride or a firstborn baby.

Her name was Ginger and she was a U.S. Navy nurse, fresh on leave from Oahu.

Having spent the last year or so sorting out the living from the dying, Ginger was eager for a good time when he'd met her at one of the many crowded ballrooms during an early evening's hunt in his stolen RAF uniform.

She was lively, petite, intelligent, and despite her trim blue uniform, looked like a cross between Clara Bow and Betty Grable, especially in the leg department, with a voice like Betty Boop's, big green eyes, and a mop of unruly red curls which constantly escaped from any attempt at la Grable's fashionable upsweep.

She could also almost keep up with Spike drink for drink, cigarette for cigarette.

Unlike Dru, she had a sense of humor.

And she loved to dance.

Initially dismissing Ginger as an easy meal before moving on to bigger prey, she'd been such fun that Spike had excused himself for a bit, emptied a back door prostitute in the alley behind the dance hall he'd met Ginger in, and gone back in looking for her after stuffing the body in a garbage can.

Once he'd pried her from the sweaty grip of a huge Marine who had about as much grace as a bull with a bee under his tail, Spike, no, Flight Officer William Tulley, learned that Ginger had six older brothers (so she could take anything gross he might do with a giggle instead of a glare), was a New Jersey girl (Her accent was as heavy as the cartoon Betty's was. Dru loathed Betty, deeming her dead common, and in the mood Spike had been in that night after walking in on Dru "tickling the ivories" with a demon that wasn't him in their bed, Betty was more than a little bit of all right.), and she was always up for a good time.

Which suited Spike just fine as the two of them danced in the sweaty crush of uniforms until the Shore Patrol came in and broke it up so that they wound up necking in a nearby alley.

Ginger thought he was pretty swell, too.

Anyway, who knew freckles could be so charming?

He let her live.

The next night Ginger caught him loitering on the street from not far from the YWCA where she was billeted, greeting him enthusiastically before doing the rounds together. She was small and curvy and in the relaxed mores of the time (After all, he might be killed. To turn him down would be unpatriotic, even if he was _British!)_ she fit quite comfortably under his arm at his side as unchaperoned they went from club to club to USO station and then to some anonymous all night diner for pie and coffee before sunrise (she never seemed to notice that though Spike always bought, he never ate around her and that they never went to places where there were mirrors) followed by a lot of heavy petting and necking on a bus stop bench before, arm around her tiny waist, he saw her to the door of her crowded billet…

…but not before more back alley hi-jinx, with Ginger standing on a packing crate because of the difference in their heights, red ringlets exploding out of their tortoise shell combs in all directions, greedily returning his kisses in between drags on a shared Lucky Strike.

The following evening, Spike stood in the middle of his stolen room in the Hyperion, RAF suspenders loose around his hips in a cloud of bay rum, Sen-Sen and Brylcreem, absently trimming his Clark Gable style mustache around a fresh Lucky Strike, contemplating trading Dru in for Ginger.

Though not as elegant as Dru, Ginger was FUN.

Ginger would saucily walk right past dozens of randy soldiers, sailors, and Marines loaded down with unspent pay as they wolf whistled at her shapely legs without so much as a sideways glance whenever she and her presumed Lt. Tulley met of an evening for a Rhumba or six capped off by a bit of Swing.

Ginger was also stable.

Dru's unpredictability kept things interesting, but a man could only take so much after a while.

Anyway, if Spike was going to live forever, it might as well be with a muse who at least could keep her knickers on around a better offer.

He'd do it.

After delivering Ginger back to the YWCA not long before sunrise, Spike spent the day calling in favors from the phone booth in the Hyperion's uniform crowded, cavernous lobby, so that by the time he left a message for Ginger at the Y's front desk asking her to meet him at the bar in the Hyperion that evening, he was ready and the room was ready.

William, or the last lingering vestiges of William, was delighted at what he planned. This wouldn't be a cheap back alley Siring like his had been, but a tryst, a wedding night. There would be candles. There would be oysters. There would be chocolate and silk. There would be wine (doctored with euphorics to make the transition easier); there would be clean sheets.

There would be flowers.

There would be Glenn Miller turned down low on the portable record player on the nightstand within easy reach, maybe a little Guy Lombardo to sweeten things up.

There would be seduction.

There would be privacy.

And afterwards, the pleasure of teaching Ginger how to hunt.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hyperion Hotel, Room 515, Los Angeles, California, 1943_

When Spike awoke to the sound of thunder, a still fully human Ginger sat smoking on the windowsill wearing his stolen blue RAF uniform shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tails almost to her knees, watching lightning dance along the peaks of the San Gabriels on the eastern horizon, the candles burned down to dribbly pools around the room.

Framed by blackout curtains and distant lightning, she reached out one small hand to him in the fragile, gray light. Taking it, Spike joined her, rain suddenly sheeting down the window, blurring the early morning traffic on the street below into smears of colored light as he put his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on atop her unruly curls, eyes closed, listening to the rain beat against the glass.

Somewhere between peeling off that shirt and tumbling trouserless into bed with Ginger, Spike decided that putting the end off until sunrise would be more poetic then mid-roll in the hay as originally planned— thank you Nancy-boy William. Down below in the Hyperion's elaborate bar, Ginger balked at Spike's invitation to join him for the night, only to knock on his door, orchid corsage pinned to her uniform lapel not long after he'd stiffly marched away from their shared table in the Hyperion's ballroom after brusquely slapping down a book of matches with his room number scribbled on it in front of her should she change her mind.

Once inside, Spike's gifts had been accepted with proper gratitude when oddly nervous, he'd presented them to Ginger one by one in the light of a single candle: they had shared the chocolates and the cigarettes with her giggling in Spike's lap in the room's only chair in between oysters, necking to "Wish Upon a Star" surrounded by more candles. Later, the wine was greeted with delight: a child of working class slum tenements, except for communion wine, she had been raised around beer and bathtub gin.

Wine was posh.

He was posh.

Blushing, Ginger accepted his final gift, coming out from behind the privacy screen a naughty barefoot pixie in disheveled curls and green silk.

There was more wine.

Glen had been the right choice of wingman as the euphorics took effect while they slow danced to "A String of Pearls", shedding Spike's stolen uniform piece by piece along the way before Ginger pulled him down on the bed on top of her.

Afterwards, smoking as they lay side by side without touching in the dark room with Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" softly swirling in the background, she quietly thanked him.

He wasn't her first.

He wouldn't be her last.

 _It started in 1941._

 _19 and fresh out of nursing school, Ginger had joined her twin brother George in some place called Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii for a visit after he'd completed Navy boot camp, and had fallen in love with the place. Nurses were always needed. Maybe she could find a job in nearby Honolulu, maybe keep house for him, maybe start a new life in paradise, far away from the industrial grime of New Jersey._

 _The first Sunday after Ginger's arrival dawned bright and clear. After early Mass together at a nearby chapel overlooking the Pacific, her twin asked her to come with him to the harbor for a picnic and to see the ship he'd been assigned to. And would she wear the new hat, shoes and dress he'd bought for her birthday with his first Navy paycheck the night before? He had a buddy, a ship's carpenter from Iowa, who'd seen her picture in his footlocker who_ _really_ _wanted to meet her._

 _George was so proud, so excited about his first assignment that though Ginger couldn't tell a battleship from a bathtub and could care less, she'd agreed to come see this floating steel marvel, this Arizona, this amazing floating fortress and MAYBE meet his friend for coffee and hamburgers for lunch in that little diner where a lot of the sailors assigned to Pearl ate overlooking the harbor afterwards. She needn't worry, the guys would LOVE her, his prettiest sister. (George, don't say that. I'm your only sister!) Why, she have 'em eating out of her hand in no time!_

 _At 7:48, while standing beside George, new field glasses he'd given her as another birthday gift pressed to her eyes, studying the Arizona which was riding at anchor across the harbor at Ford's Island while he enthusiastically explained the difference between a fantail and a prow, Ginger heard a rumbling sound in the distance followed by the wail of sirens._

 _Following the noise, she swung her field glasses around, and looking out over the harbor noticed a line of black columns of smoke rising into the clear blue sky._

 _That was when a nearby siren went off, all but deafening her._

 _George exclaimed, grabbed her by the arm, and hustled her across the concrete quay away from the water. She lost a shoe, but he wouldn't let her stop to retrieve it so she'd limped half shod across the scarred concrete as he urged her on, half-carrying her until, a huge cloud of smoke and flame belched skyward from the Arizona with a deafening roar behind them, followed by a second, louder blast, creating a shockwave which went through her body like the angry word of God as waves suddenly washed up over the artificial shore where they'd been standing just seconds before._

 _Gaping Ginger stopped in her tracks looking upward, field glasses forgotten heavy on their strap around her neck as airplanes roared overhead followed by many smaller, rapid concussions and the whistling of dropping bombs. Her twin knocked her to the ground, landing on top of her as an airplane with a red circle on it's side roared overhead almost close enough to touch, the stench of its exhaust a hot slap, a whistling line of bullets inches from her face._

 _As more bombs went off around them, showering them with shattered concrete, Ginger's twin yanked her to her feet, shoved her into a taxi in the tangle of cars, sirens, screams, and smoke, ordering the driver to head out into the countryside, somewhere, anywhere, just get her to safety, tossing his wallet in after her, before snagging a ride on a passing truck that was speeding back towards the burning harbor._

 _Another explosion and Ginger found herself staggering around hatless and shoeless outside the burning overturned taxi surrounded by running people. Dazed and bleeding at the knees from when she'd been blown across the pavement, she wandered in the red dress her brother had given her towards the explosions, towards the harbor, towards the screams._

 _(Ginger had paused mid-story in the dark beside Spike, pulling long and hard on the fresh cigarette he'd just handed her, before continuing her soft murmur to herself which he listened to with only half an ear, debating if he wanted to take her to one of the more exclusive ballrooms for her first kill or down to the docks for a random sailor before taking her to one of the high class Hollywood boutiques for a new dress as he tucked her against his side in the orange blossom darkness, savoring her soon to be lost warmth against his bare skin.)_

 _Though she'd just graduated the week before, Ginger went from stretcher to stretcher, kissing the ones on the forehead she knew were lost causes so the doctors wouldn't waste valuable time on them, going through both tubes of lipstick in her purse and then her rouge as the Arizona slowly sank sideways in the water, gouts of thick black smoke belching from her sundered hull, sister ships bleeding rainbow clots of diesel oil as they descended moaning into the blue Pacific while the burning Nevada deliberately ran herself aground._

 _Sunrise found Ginger pacing up and down between laid out lines of silent men beneath the pearl gray sky, her kisses scarlet on their foreheads, dead eyes staring blindly upwards, oblivious to the streams of black, stinking smoke that drifted past. A Navy nurse found her staring down at the waterlogged, horribly burned body of her twin._

 _The other nurse convinced Ginger to sit down, to have some coffee, to go home._

 _Instead, Ginger had the taxi driver drop her off at the Naval recruiting station in Honolulu where she sat barefoot, disheveled, and torn of stockings in her blood-stiffened dress on the front steps waiting for the recruiting officer to unlock the door. She had beaten the men and boys, and was the first to join up, never looking back._

 _She always volunteered for the hardest assignments, sometimes being the first to help unload the mangled bodies of the wounded._

 _Coral Sea…_

 _Midway…_

 _Wake…_

 _Guadalcanal…_

 _…and… others._

 _And that Spike, Willy, was not her first. (Yeah, I sussed that the second you… oh yeah, what one can do with a wee lass not afraid to take chances!)_

 _And he would not be her last - she had singled him out because he wasn't American— there was less chance of her looking down one day and see him staring blankly up at the sky as her brother had that horrible morning. (Did I miss something? And then maybe I'll nick that Pontiac Streamliner I've had my eye on for a while… black out the windows… go back East… show you a good time in New York...)_

 _And she thanked him for helping her to forget it all for just a little while. (…forget what?)_

 _And that she was shipping out this morning. (Heh, that's what you think, pet– you deserve better than anything the U.S. Navy can give you and I'm just the lad for the job!)_

 _And that she was a nurse. She had resources. He needn't worry about her showing up with the shameful burden of an unwanted child nine months later – if he was even still alive by then. (Not a problem with OUR kind, kid.)_

 _That, and the Mickey Finn he'd slipped her hadn't been necessary. She was a nurse, for God's sake, who did he think he was fooling? (Bloody hell, my head, had a little too much joy juice myself, better start the job NOW before I…) She didn't exactly fall off a turnip truck this morning!_

 _Woozy from the same Finn, Spike let out a loud snort at this image followed by an unmanly giggle so that Ginger'd sat up suddenly exclaiming as she smacked him one, "Hey! Did you even hear a word I said, Willy?"_

 _"Yeah, pet, every soddin' word!" Dizzy, Spike'd passed Ginger the half-empty wine bottle and she'd downed it anyway, with him finishing off the dregs before dropping it so that it shattered beside the bed on the parquet when he rolled over on top of her, presenting her with another highly restrained sample of what to expect from him in the near future, the ghost of William standing in the shadows reassuring him that some things didn't need to be savored slowly, that there was time._

So just as the edges of the San Gabriel mountains started to brighten from behind with the rising sun piercing the storm, Ginger turned her back on them, facing Spike on her windowsill perch, the scent of wine and orange blossoms mingled with cigarettes filling his senses, oddly passive as Spike carried her back to the bed like a child, from where she looked up at him in the grey light with the same look of dull exhaustion as he would later see on Joyce's the evening before she collapsed, and still later in the eyes of Joyce's eldest when he knelt wordlessly before her, cradling her coffin-torn knuckles in his much larger ones.

 _Demon-faced and unaware of the future, Spike had reached up, pulled the blackout curtains shut with one hand before turning up the record player to a deafening level and taking the present in his arms, sinking his fangs deep into her throat._

 _Had he been paying attention, Spike would have noticed that Ginger had arched her neck up to meet his mouth exactly where the bite would be the most effective._


	3. Chapter 3

_Hyperion Hotel, Room 515, Los Angeles, California, 1943_

Spike turned down the record player; there had been no screams to drown out. Gasping, Ginger had stiffened in his arms, hands twitching as he rapidly brought her down to teeter on the edge, prolonging her life even as he killed her, cradling her, rocking her like a fussy infant between slow, timed bites and lingering kisses as her eyes glazed over and her mouth grew slack. With 50 odd years of experience behind him, Spike was a past master at prolonging the end; Ginger was in good hands with him as unlikely midwife.

Only there would be no tears and very little pain: Spike wanted what rose the following evening to look at him and him only– he'd tried this once before and been very sloppy about it so that things ended badly.

But this time it would work. He'd been extremely careful so that HE'd be the one on top for once.

When it was over, he'd lay her out on the bed in the fresh nightgown he'd tucked away in the bureau, surrounded by candles and flowers with her hair combed and spread out on the pillow, maybe change the sheets, maybe play a few hands of solitaire as he waited for her to rise. Hell, maybe he'd join her – why rise alone?

Spike pulled out, blood dribbling down his chin and pooling on his bare chest before blotting his mouth on his shoulder, rearranging them both for comfort as the needle on the record player reached the end of the track, spinning in crackling silence. He stretched, leaning back against the headboard, grinning gore-mouthed up at the ceiling. And now, for the magic. Biting cleanly through his own tongue, he leaned over Ginger's blank face, placing his mouth over hers, letting the cool blood flow between them…

…only to find himself flying through the air and then the window in a shower of breaking glass to land naked in the rain washed street five stories below outside the Hyperion when after walking through the door without bothering to open it first, Dru grabbed him by the ankles and hammer-threw him across the room screaming, "Naughty! Naughty! Our William's stuck his fingers in the cake!"


	4. Chapter 4

_Los Angeles, California, 1943_

A few hours later, Lt. Ginger O'Reilly, a U.S. Navy nurse on her way to a new assignment at the Navy hospital at Pearl Harbor after a week's recreational leave awoke in a Los Angeles receiving hospital after having collapsed earlier that morning at a city bus station of severe anemia.

Lt. O'Reilly had a half-healed wound on the side of her neck, which she had dressed herself, claiming that an unknown assailant had attacked her the previous night on her way to her billet at a nearby YWCA, pulling her into an alley and stealing her purse after assaulting her with a knife. She had struggled and escaped otherwise unharmed from her attacker, whom she couldn't describe. A complaint was filed with local authorities, which was eventually dropped due to lack of evidence.

She was then transferred to the naval hospital at Long Beach for observation and released to resume her duties a week later, a momentary blip in the otherwise exemplary career of a dedicated career nurse who marched off into history…


	5. Chapter 5

_Long Beach, California, 1943_

...or did she?


	6. Chapter 6

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Lobby, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

As far as Spike was concerned, a party wasn't a party until somebody's knickers wound up taking a ride on the ceiling fan.

Even if they were size XXL granny panties with the word "Friday" embroidered five inches high across the seat in hot pink thread flappin' 'round overhead.

"Speed it up, gramps. Don't let that one get away!" Laughing, he stepped back as an equally spacious girdle, bra and pair of flesh-colored support hose giggled past, followed by a triumphant yell of "Whoopeeeeeeee! Birds do it. Bees do it. How's about yous and mees do it?" as whooped out by the little old man in the remains of a WWII Army Air Corps uniform leaning heavily on a walker who inched past him in very slow hot pursuit of the Rascal ridin' owner of the extremely large undergarments with a lampshade on his head.

"Snow on the roof, fire in the potbelly below, oh _yeah_ \- go with it me old son!" The vampire grinned, shaking his head as he watched the amorous little parade snail past, "Go with it- hey, OW!"

"Spike!" Drusilla's discarded toy found himself being swung around by the tie before being slammed into the wall, "I don't know what you did or how you did it," Buffy snarled, glaring up at him, both of them suddenly mashed together as an unsteady conga line of laughing senior citizens giddily waving plastic cups of red punch pushed past them, "But this is YOUR FAULT!" The Slayer flailed her free hand behind her while pulling away, indicating the unruly mass of elderly delinquents overflowing the Center's spacious front lobby. "Ewwww, get off of me!"

"(Wheeze!) Like what you feel, pet? (Aaaaaak, ow, hey!) No. (cough) Well, not all of it. (Wheeze, lay off the tie, pet!) Well, yeah. Maybe. Some, I did, some of it… (choke) Randy (wheeze) sprinkled powdered Viagra on the cookies…not me! All I did was pour Bourbon into the punch bowl. Brilliant, innit?" Spike coughed out as Buffy savagely yanked his tie even harder, enjoying her barely contained rage too much to bother trying to escape even if it was hard on the wardrobe.

"He…you… did _WHAT?"_ Buffy's voice shot up an octave, "And what's this?" She shoved her free hand into one of Spike's stolen suit pockets and pulled out a handful of empty band candy wrappers, waving them around "Is this, oh. My. God. This is…. This is…. This is…" She relaxed her grip on Spike's tie just enough for Spike to catch his breath – not that he really needed it.

"Yeah, (cough) brilliant, innit? I found half a case of the things layin 'round in the dump after Ethan Rayne…" Already doubled over, Spike moved his head aside just in time for Buffy to leave a fist-sized dent in the drywall where his head had been.

"You! You! You! …I can't even think of a word for… HEY!" Buffy squealed, jumping as a passing oldster wearing only a bathrobe, a sailor hat, trifocals and several faded hula dancer tattoos goosed her backside, "Hey, hands off!" before adding while quickly looking up at the ceiling eyes closed tightly, "And, oh my God, close your bathrobe. Nobody wants to see _that!_ "

Ignoring the Slayer's order, the extremely happy sailor cackled at her through his loose dentures, "Got some nylon stockings for ya' girlie, Hershey bars, too! They're yours for a little vo-di-oh-do!" He puckered up aiming for the Slayer, who jumped back, losing her grip on Spike's tie entirely exclaiming, "Oh no you vo-di-oh-don't, shoo! Shoo!"

"Shove off, mate, I was here first." Spike added over her shoulder with a smirk and then wheezed as Buffy remembered what she was doing and gave the long-suffering accessory another savage yank. "(Wheeze) Shoulda wore a bloody clip on!")

"All the hot tomatoes done got took first," Deflated in spirit but not in uh, other ways, Buffy's bald but eager suitor sighed, shaking his head sadly before suddenly brightening, "Hey, Flossie, hot stuff! Save some of that for me!" He hollered, waving a Hershey bar and a sweaty package of nylons at what was possibly the world's oldest stripper strutting her stuff atop the lobby's television set in front of an arthritic but enthusiastic audience throwing crumpled singles at her as he rapidly tottered off towards the scandal, open bathrobe flapping seductively. "Don't remove them hearing aids until I get there, toots!"

Spike pried his fingers between the constricting band and his throat, gaining some air, "That, (cough) pet, (cough) was Randy. You can thank him later for the cookies."

"Oh my God. Did, did Randy, I mean, Mr. Cockburn, just come on to me?" Buffy shook her head dazedly as if she'd been sucker punched.

"Yeah, horny lit'l bugger for his age!" Pulling his tie free from Buffy's angry grip before loosening it and stuffing it down among the empty band candy wrappers for future safety, Spike nodded towards the temporary stage where Dawn's Junior High School's jazz band struggled to keep up with a group of very elderly musicians led by a rickety black man in a threadbare cherry red zoot suit belting out dirty jazz tunes on a battered trumpet with an improvised mute made from a toilet plunger. "Still, look at 'em go!" The little bottle redhead with the punk cut and the quarter-sized upright bass had been shouldered aside by some elderly Hipster lugging a full sized upright bass bigger than both of them. She kept slapping and plucking away despite the pushing and shoving, even stepping aside without missing a note as the very unsteady fist fight which had started by the punch bowl over who got the last cookie, meandered and cursed it's flailing way through the musicians and out the other side, an intent look of concentration on her pixie face, glasses sliding unheeded down her sweating nose as she jostled with her unexpected competitor for space. "Now THIS is a party!"

"But they might fall down! And break their hips! Or, or, or have a heart attack and DIE in the middle of doing… _THAT_!" Her eyes bugged as a necking half naked couple whizzed past them in matching electric wheelchairs towards the residential section without looking where they were going. "Oh my God…"

"Yeah?" Spike leered down in Buffy's scandalized face. "Can you think of a better way to go?"

"You son of a…" Buffy tore her eyes off of the amorous oldsters, shook her head, and slugged Spike in the face before elbowing her way into the milling mass of partying senior citizens to break up the fight before it rolled down the nearby staircase and out the open front door. "Break it up! Break it up!"

Nose bleeding, hands in pockets, Spike sauntered laughing in her wake in his unaccustomed low quarter dress shoes, only to stumble over the dead body of the Night Supervisor.


	7. Chapter 7

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Lobby, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

Spike caught himself in mid-stumble just in time to see a small, hunched figure disappear into the milling mass of senior citizens before rolling over the flaccid body of the woman who had given him the stinkeye earlier in the evening as he'd escorted Dawn into the decorated lobby of the Assisted Living Center, already stuffing her face on the as of yet undoctored cookies intended for the Center's inmates.

Rushing forward, Dawn had squealed indignantly, "Those are for my Sadie Hawkins Party, put those down!"

"Oi," Spike'd added, offended for Dawn, who'd spent all day baking them herself if the state of Joyce's kitchen was any indication, "Put down the pastries, Petunia, and back away."

"These are for everybody, and anyway, I'm diabetic. I need sugar or I'll pass out!" He'd loomed over the large woman who, shedding cookie crumbs, backed down nervously clutching a Big Gulp cup full of of pilfered punch and Dawn's cookies to her overflowing mid-section. "Oh, all right!"

Huffing, she'd waddled towards the front desk, with the plate of cookies and the near-bucket's worth of punch which had been meant for everyone as Dawn nervously rushed to the refreshment table to replace the pilfered cookies, brush off the crumbs, and top off the punch bowl as her guests began to filter in from the surrounding residential halls.

Automatically, he pushed aside the night manager's triple chin and checked.

Yeah, exactly what he figured: a double puncture, unusually small, child-sized, even – and right in the middle of the crowd – which took balls.

He looked up, realizing he had an audience. "Did anybody see…?

"That's the fat cow that ate all the Godiva Valentine's chocolates my grandchildren brought me." A granny with an overturned flower basket on her head interrupted him flatly before turning away towards the bandstand.

"And my do-nuts." "She stole Mr. Bodenhammer's little radio - I saw her do it when he was in the lavatory. He was heartbroken for a week!" "And my dessert." "Bitch took my new alarm clock and drank my Dr. Pepper, right in front of me!" "She locked me in the linen closet when I complained to the management about her eating my Christmas cookies!" "I had to lie in my own wee for an hour last night when my catheter broke with me ringing the bell while she sat at the front desk talking to her boyfriend on the phone – she deserved this!" "Yeah, she deserved this!"

"Bloody hell… Buffy!" After rolling the heavy corpse to the side Spike pushed through the crowd of triumphant old ladies who'd gathered around him and his discovery. He found her separating two flailing combatants by the front door.

"You, sit down!" She parked one geriatric combatant on a bench, "And you, sit over here, keep your hands to yourself, and think about what you've do… Hey! Put that cigar away!"

"Buffy!"

"What now?" The Slayer swung on him, raking her hair out of her eyes. "Another fight you probably started?"

"No, not this time." Spike nodded back in the direction he'd come, "Don't want to alarm you, pet, but there's something in here with fangs that isn't me."


	8. Chapter 8

_Kansas City Union Station, Kansas City, Kansas, 1943_

Collar and tie loosened, Spike, William, leaned back stretching, before relaxing into the dusty velvet of the seat in the darkened private train compartment smoking in quiet contentment, the slow motion slice of broken glass working it's way out of his back and scalp an enjoyable ache as Drusilla, giving off soft moans of pleasure, languidly nursed off the side of his neck as she nestled on his lap, one slender, sharp-nailed hand slipped down into the front of his open trousers.

Outside Spike could hear the hustle and bustle of the busy railroad terminus: the yells of baggage handlers, conductors, and candy vendors, the hissing of steam and hydraulics— he took an especially deep drag, illuminating his face, recently divested of the Clark Gable mustache, revealing relaxed, half-lidded eyes, before blowing a long, leisurely stream of smoke up at the invisible ceiling. Yeah, time to give L.A. the brush off, to go back to New York… the hustle of Times Square at midnight, Broadway… show Dru a good time... keep her happy...

He dozed off in a flurry of cigarette ashes, arms around his Black Rose, face buried in her dark hair as with a rumble and a jerk, the eastbound train lurched forward on it's way across the sleeping prairie towards the Big Apple, a veritable rolling buffet.


	9. Chapter 9

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Lobby, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

"Is this your idea of a sick joke?" Buffy gestured at the room, "I mean, what vampire feeds on… old people?" Frowning at the increasingly rowdy walker and wheelchair crowd kept barely contained by the frantic nursing staff, she added, "I mean, why this when there's The Bronze or any number of frat parties?

"Easy pickin's." Spike shrugged, "Something you top off with before going for something tasti— I mean, more _challenging_."

"Gross!" Buffy gave him a disgusted look before she pushed past him, scanning. "Your kind has no limits, do they?"

"That's what makes it all worthwhile – c'mon pet, this needs to be dealt with, _now_." Spike urged Buffy back into motion, "Body's over there, by the potted rubber plant where I rolled it after I tripped over it in the middle of the floor with the old biddies laughin' and pokin' at it with their canes."

Buffy stopped, "They _what?_ "

"Can't say as I blame, 'em, pet. It was the night manager."

"The "diabetic" with the cookie addiction Dawnie whined about to me the second I got here?"

"Yeah. Real sweet woman, used to take their things, nick their choccies. They, heh, don't seem too upset about it."

"Show me." Buffy stepped aside to make room for the unsteady conga line, which had grown to include a woman wearing a flower arrangement hastily converted into a hat, and a man with no legs in a wheelchair bringing up the rear. Literally.

"Oh my god, are they smoking pot?"

"It's not like your generation invented it." Spike rolled his eyes, "Buffy, we've got a vampire loose in here… Buffy— oh bloody Hell, there she goes again, Miss Self-Righteous 2000!"

Buffy stormed towards the crowd of motley zoot suiters passing around a joint roughly the size of Bakersfield, "Stop that!"

"Hey, frail, welcome to our tea party. Wanna puff? A toothless viper happily held it out to her, "You a real gone kid, blondie! This yo' mop, Willy?"

"No!" Buffy fended off the left-handed cigarette, "And, Willy? WILLY?"

"Yeah." Spike took Buffy's arm and pulled her away, "Not now, later, Mezz!"

"Willy?" Buffy started to laugh and then caught herself, covering her mouth so that it came out as a snort. "Willy the vamp…"

"They think I'm my grand-dad." Spike interrupted out of the side of his mouth. "What of it?"

"I know, but Willy— oh my God, what are they standing on?" Buffy pointed downward.

"I think that's the Cody, the custodian."

"You know his name?"

"Walked in on him an' the night manager bumpin' uglies on the kitchen counter last poker night – that's what she was yellin'."

"Ewww... Wait, poker night?"

"Later Buffy. Oi, mates, step aside, I need to see your footstool."

"Awwww, man!" The elderly delinquents, fatty and all, shuffled back anyway. Spike rolled the body over. He was right, it was Cody, complete with stringy, greasy hair, rotten teeth, mis-spelt jailhouse tats, and still warm despite the twin punctures on the side of his inked neck.

Buffy yelled over the growing noise, "Did anybody see what—"

"Nuss Ginger, she done it." The pirate bandleader joined the circle, battered trumpet held under the stump of his left arm with its pinned up sleeve.

"Who?

"Nuss Ginger."

Spike remembered the slight figure rejoining the crowd earlier, "'Bout this tall," he held a hand a little lower than Buffy's head, "Pale green bathrobe wossis, bottle-red hair?"

"Yeah, that be Nuss Ginger all right." The trumpeter waved off the fatty, "Not now, Hay-soos. I done got me a gig, need my head clear – she done it, sum-bitch on the floor there, done stole my wallet, an used my lucky mute t' prop open th' back door, mashed tha' sucker flat!" Laughing, he mopped his gleaming ebony forehead with a big handkerchief, shaking his head, "That there Ginger be a reeeeeaaaalll _pistol!"_

"He swiped both my wedding and my Marine Corps ring!" "Him an his fat-ass share-cropper broke the nice E-Z Boy my son done give me for my 90th birthday – caught 'em boppin' on it wi' me in th' room tryin' t' sleep!" "He got my dead old lady's gold rosary from my sock drawer, the one blessed by the Bishop of Los Angeles heemself, when I enlist into Navy, but he not got _theees_." The last zoot suiter slipped a well-worn ivory handled switchblade out of his sleeve and with a practiced flick, released the razor sharp blade under the Slayer's nose, "I would cut gringo boy's balls off if not fo' Nurse Ginger getting to heeem first." He grinned over the blade at Buffy with stained and broken teeth embellished by a pencil thin white mustache, adding, "Nurse Ginger, she caught him wearin' my Juanita's rosary las' night. Told him she was calling the police, he knock her down, keek her, _hard_ – I hear bones break - snap! Like chicken bones."

"He done shove Nuss Ginger's body in the dumpster out back like so much ga-bidge. But she back now, and she can do anything she damned please, far as I care!"


	10. Chapter 10

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Lobby, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

"Oh my God!" Buffy exclaimed, "You mean…"

"Later, mates!" Spike grabbed Buffy by the arm, dragging her away to a chorus of, "This time, don't forget that Bloomin' Onion I already paid you for!" "We dispose a de bodies, eeeeeeasy!" "Bring me a whole plate of deviled eggs and the latest _Esquire_ – I'll pay you then!" "Track me down another one of them stag films, boy!" "Tequila!" "You owe me a hunnert bucks!" "Hey, dollface! When yo' get tired'a Willy-boy here, come see me, I give you a reaaaaaall goooood time!"

"Ewwww, gross gross gross…" Buffy shuddered at the last one and hastily yanked the subject back on track, "Anyway, that guy… murdered… her… but she… she…"

"It. Happens."

"But if she was…" Buffy slammed to a halt, causing Spike to swing around to face her.

"It. Happens."

"But if she…"

"I _SAID_ , it happens. Sometimes when one of my kind feeds, maybe with a cut in their mouth or something and whoever it is gets away, somehow… and it, I don't know, it… it just sits, incubates, bides its time… sometimes for years. If I'm right, that's what's happened – didn't Giles ever tell you this?"

"I never asked! And it's going after…"

"Buffy, you should know this by now: you wake up hungry, so you go for whatever moves – I've seen you use Xander as bait, so don't tell me you don't know this already!"

"I do… not!" Indignantly Buffy shook his hand off, "Sometimes it just happens!"

"Yeah, right," Spike smirked, getting in Buffy's face close enough for her to smell loaded punch and menthols on his breath, "Anyway, Slayer, if you don't have anything close, you hunt… you go after FAMILY… you go after FRIENDS… you go after people you HATE… but mostly, you go after _the ones who get separated from the herd_ – you feed and feed and feed until you can feed no more– easy targets…" Spike stopped mid-taunt, a horrified look flickering across his face, "Oh God, where's Dawn?"

"Oh no, I left her by the punch bowl reloading the cookie platters from the Tupperwares in the kitchen when all this started!" Buffy looked around wildly, jumping up and down, trying to see over the crowd.

Taller by a head, Spike craned his neck over the heaving sea of bald spots, battered hats and the occasional floral arrangement adapted into a hat, "I can't see her, and guess what? Granny Glutton's heading towards the kitchen!"


	11. Chapter 11

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

"Dawn's in the kitchen, she's got to be!" Buffy plowed her way through the crowd, "If that vamp, and I don't care how old it is, so much as lays a… ooop!" The Slayer hastily pulled her skirt down in mid-stride from where somebody was lifting it with their cane, exposing a black lace thong, "Stop that, bad grandpa! Bad, BAD grandpa!"

Spike gave the grinning nonegarian a thumb's up in Buffy's wake as she burst through the kitchen's swinging door, "Dawn! Dawn! I don't see her— Dawn!"

"That little cancelled stamp? She's hoofed it!" cackled a very elderly woman, compression stockings rolled below her rouged knees, who was pouring something into a large jar packed with spices looted from the nearby cabinets before adding. "Said she had to iron her shoelaces!" She pointed the bottle with a Smirnoff label clutched in one arthritic hand towards the double doors leading into the dining room on the other side of the lobby, adding "Yoo hoo, Blue Serge! You ever get tired of Mrs. Grundy over there, I'm up in room 300." The centenarian seducer cooed up at Spike, suggestively wiggling her hips, "Come up, an' see me some time – for giggle-water and barneymuggin', maybe kick th' gong around!" She tossed the dead soldier to the floor over her shoulder where it smashed on the tiles.

Startled, Buffy paused mid-stomp through the kitchen, "Did the oldest living woman in Sunnydale just make a pass at you?"

"Yeah." Spike smirked at Buffy's discomfort, "No girl like an old girl, eh, Daisy?" Clutching a freshly opened bottle of rubbing alcohol, the fossilized flapper pouted up at him with beestung lips, batting her eyelashes before with a leer, Spike grabbed Buffy by the arm and trailing a, "Later, toots! I'll bring the ukulele and the Mason jars if you got the sheet music!" and hustled the Slayer through the swinging doors into the dining room before coming to a complete stop, "Bloody Hell, we'll never find either one in this mess."

"There it goes," Buffy started after the green-bathrobe slipping into the a mob of hooting old men in the remains of uniforms from long-forgotten battles gathered around Flossie, who had obviously decided that the top of a T.V., even if was big screen, wasn't a suitable stage for a woman of her talent and had switched to a table, and was now doing a long, slow Hoochie Coochie grind on the tablecloth accompanied by a nasty drum solo as pounded out by a man in a moth-eaten fedora on an overturned plastic trash can while playing the kazoo. Staring, Buffy ground to a halt, looking up, "I don't believe it."

Spike backpedaled through the double doors, calling, "Forget the vamp, the loo's over there, find Dawn— I'll be right back."

"What…ever." Open-mouthed, Buffy gaped at the awe-inspiring sight of a power girdle with damp, crumpled singles clinging to it being slowly removed in time to music. "That's Mrs. Blanchefleur, the second oldest living human in Sunnydale, and she… she's got a tattoo of… a heart… right by her… oh my God!"

Spike burst back out into the lobby, scribbling something hastily on the back of a torn open pack of menthols with a pencil he'd found near the bathtub gin factory before grabbing the one-armed trumpeter who was emptying his spit valve into the pot of one of the decorative rubber plants that infested the front lobby, "Hey, Gatemouth, you take requests?"

"Sho'nuff, Willy-boy. What'chou got for ol' Gatemouth?"

Spike held out the list. Gatemouth, after tucking his trumpet under his stump took it, and studied it at arm's length through his trifocals. "That's more _o-fay_ than I usually do. It'll cost you that hunnert you gran-pappy owe me. It ain't hep, but for a hunnert, we do it!"

Spike dug into his hip pocket, pulled out roll of bills, and reluctantly peeled off ten before slapping them across Gatemouth's broad, open palm, "Whatever. Just keep playin' until this runs out!"

"Now, kiddies, you's about to get you's a REAL musical eddication!" Gatemouth called out to the frazzled looking junior high students and their unexpected guest musicians, "These here ol' men knows "Sing Sing Sing", jus' follow along fas' and hard as you can and you do all right – Izzy, give that li'l gal wit' t' baby bass a propuh _pick_ , she gonna need it!"

Shaking his head while swinging his trumpet like a conductor's baton, Gatemouth stamped out the time with one beautifully two-toned shod foot, leaning forward like a runner waiting for the starting gun, "Boom chicka boom chicka boom - on my mark, get set, Sticks, help that boy on th' drums with the beat… yeah, thass right, kid, tha's right, boom chicka boom chicka boom – you, boy on baritone sax, get ready, follow Skeech, he know what t'do! Thass right, thass right, boom chicka boom chicka boom… you gots it, kid!"

Spike rejoined Buffy as Gatemouth's comandeered band burst into an initially unsteady sax chorus, which quickly gained confidence while gaining altitude, "This should clear things out a bit." They stepped aside as the herd of Flossie's fans started eagerly shuffling back towards the lobby, with Flossie bringing up the rear in a scandalous peignoir counting the evening's take, trash can drummer not far behind.


	12. Chapter 12

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Dining Hall, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

Buffy reached for the handle of the ladies room door only to jump back when it slammed open, allowing a crowd of excited, chattering elderly women in a mixture of bathrobes, cardigans, and improvised skirts made from pulled down curtains and random tablecloths to exit as they adjusted improvised hats cannibalized from the dining room's plastic floral centerpieces or checked their makeup in ancient compact mirrors.

Clutching one shoe, a limping Dawn brought up the rear, hair pinned up in the height of 1940s fashion, eyes red from crying.

"Hey, sailor!" "Yoo hoo, over here, it's Sadie Hawkins - wanna dance?" "Me! Me!" "I saw him first – he's mine!" "Ooooooh, _FRESH MEAT!" "Back off honey, this one's MINE!"_ Surrounded on all sides. Spike was so startled by this bizarre manifestation of aggressive estrogen that he stood frozen as they flirted and posed for him while Buffy, doubled over with laughter, leaned against the door.

"I got Bourbon and two glasses up in my room. Wanna see if I'm tellin' the truth?"

"Hey, Joe, whaddya know?"

"Wanna dance? They're playin' our song!"

He turned, one elderly flirt per arm with more not wanting to wait their turn, "Sorry ladies, I already have a date. Dawn, over here. NOW!"

There was a disappointed chorus of, "Awwww, _nerts!_ "

"I don't understand," Hopping awkwardly, Dawn managed to get her shoe back on, "It all started out so nice; my school's jazz band was playing, everybody was drinking my punch and eating cookies, and sort of dancing, and then BOOM, they all went crazy!" Buffy's little sister sniffled, "Like really bad teenagers, only with walkers!"

"Uh, yeah, right." Shedding his vintage admirers, Spike put an arm around Dawn's shoulders, "Ladies, I'm being rationed, she's my date tonight, Sadie H. and all that – sorry, she got here first!"

There was another disappointed chorus, Buffy straightened, mouthing, "Your _date?"_

"Is that "In the Mood" I hear playing in the lobby?" Spike called out as, with Dawn in tow, he plowed his way against his rapidly dispersing crowd of groupies towards Buffy, adding, "Lots of stags tonight, just waitin' t' be asked t' hoof it!" He paused, did he just see one of the remaining tablecloths being used as originally intended move? There, over by the hallway that led into the residential section... "Buffy, it's under the table behind…"

Standing on tiptoe, Buffy got in his face, interrupting, "You're Dawn's _date?"_ Rearing back with nostrils flaring, she pulled a stake from behind her back where it had been concealed in the waistband of her skirt.

"It's my Sadie Hawkins dance. I asked Spike because everybody else was bus…" Dawn backed away hastily at Buffy's expression. "I think I'll just be invisible over here by this fake potted plant."

"Your date? Who's stupid idea was this?"

"Your. Mum's."


	13. Chapter 13

_Handwritten note found torn in half behind the dryer in the basement of the house on Alverado Street, Sunnydale, California, 2001_

Spike,

I'm sorry to have to ask you this, but I can't supervise the final part of Dawn's Silver Project, a Sadie Hawkins dance at the local Assisted Living facility this Saturday. She's worked so hard for nearly a year planning and organizing this all by herself that I hate to have her cancel it at such short notice. Buffy's agreed to take over for me while I'm in the hospital having some tests done. If Dawn asks you to be her escort, please, let her down easy if you don't want to – I understand, this probably isn't your "thing".

Joyce

P.S. We're almost out of Bounce sheets and it's two weeks past your turn to replace them.

P.P.S Tide, too.


	14. Chapter 14

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

"This was my MOTHER'S idea - _is she insane?"_

Defiantly sticking out his chin, Spike looked down his nose at her fuming face, "If you don't believe me, call her at hospital."

Buffy's mouth worked before she finally spat out, "Drop dead!"

"Already done that, pet." He pointed at the suspicious tablecloth, "And in case you've forgot, there's still a vampire in here that isn't me, and it's under _that_ table!"

"You and me, we're going to discuss this later!"

("Um, Buffy? Buffy?" Dawn stepped away from the suspiciously moving table. "It's like, really moving a lot now. Like, maybe you, like, could _do_ something about it?")

"Oh _goody_. Does this mean you're going to throw my telly at my head while calling me rude names before breaking my jaw like the last time I got on your nerves?"

("Spike? Buffy? Anybody?" Dawn edged over until she was peeking wide-eyed over Spike's shoulder at the now rhythmically moving polyester, "Can you stop fighting long enough to, like maybe _deal_ with this?")

"Not now, Dawn! …and I can't believe you put band can… oh God, she's right!" Buffy looked over her shoulder at what Dawn was staring at in horror, "Spike, cover the other side, Dawn, get out of the way…" she whispered, "Pull the table cloth off on the count of three and I'll…"

Spike jerked his head towards what might be a safe place to be for Dawn if this turned into a brawl, mouthing, "NO ARGUING!"

Dawn scurried back two tables, hand over her mouth.

Crouching, Buffy held up a finger.

Spike reached down, taking a two-handed grip on the undulating fabric.

Buffy held up a second finger, readying her stake.

Spike made ready.

Buffy held up a third finger, prepared to lunge.

Spike ripped the tablecloth off of the table.

Dawn screamed.

Buffy yelled.

Spike hastily put a hand over Dawn's eyes a little bit too late.

"Oh God, it's like two piles of vanilla pudding bouncing up and down on each other!" Buffy's little sister moaned.

"Looks like Mr. Cockburn finally got a date." Spike dropped the tablecloth and firmly turned Dawn so that she faced the dining room wall, "Good on ya' mate!"

Buffy, torn between laughter and disgust leaned on a nearby table, limply flapping her stake at the happy couple, "I am NOT helping take care of THAT baby— oh no, wrong table, it's getting away!" She scrambled after the small, green bathrobed figure wriggling it's way out from under the table beside the unexpected floor show before it scurried for the residential section with all three of them not far behind.

As for Mr. Cockburn and his romantic conquest, having removed each other's hearing aids and glasses as part of their red-hot mutual seduction, they happily continued doing what they were doing, totally oblivious to the drama going on around them.


	15. Chapter 15

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Residential Section, Sunnydale, California, 2000_

Spike lunged up the fourth story staircase, the jarring cacophony of the center's fire alarm going off nearly drowning out the sound of Buffy angrily pounding on the third story fire door one floor below.

He'd caught a glimpse of their prey's face as she'd torn open the first floor fire door, triggering the alarm, looking back at them like a frightened, ancient child before bolting up the stairs, and decided that this was his kill, not the Slayer's by the time he, Buffy, and the puffing Dawn had reached the second floor.

Bent over and breathing hard, Dawn balked at the foot of the third flight with Buffy impatiently urging her on, not wanting to let her out of sight. Already halfway up flight number three, Spike vaulted the railing, leaping down what he'd just run up, flung open the third floor fire door, and shoved both girls into the hallway before slamming and locking the heavy metal door in their faces before regaining lost ground two steps at a time.

Whoever this "Nuss Ginger" had been, the demon which now animated her had stamina, pattering up the final flight of the five-story building, slamming shut the fire door at the top of the fifth flight of stairs as Spike skidded 'round the fifth landing in his slippery dress shoes.

Clearing the top step, he grabbed the door handle, easily ripping the steel door out of it's frame in a cloud of drywall dust, before tossing it behind him where unheeded it banged and clattered it's cumbersome way down the alarm echoing stairwell, causing an angry Buffy and a startled Dawn to leap aside yelling as they tried to catch up.

Demon-faced and covered in broken plaster, Spike charged into the carpeted hallway with its many identical doors, Nuss Ginger making for one of them in a half bent over scurry.

He loped after his quarry, only catching up as she tried to slam the door to 515 in his face. Easily fending off the heavy wood panel off with one hand, he barged into the dark room, door banging off the wall as he snagged his target by one sleeve only to have the garbage reeking terrycloth rip, leaving him with a handful of torn fabric as she dove under the bed, tipping over a chair and a small end-table laden down with pictures and random tchotchkes

"C'mere, mousie!" Grinning, Spike flipped the heavy bedframe in a tumble of mattress and bedclothes, exposing his prey, who shot between his legs with a hiss, going under the dresser, which he gleefully tipped over in a crash of pill bottles and other small items. "Let's play!"

Broken glass crunching underfoot, Spike caught Nuss Ginger by one small bare foot as she scrambled on all fours towards the open door, the two of them violently slewing into the wall with a bang as they grappled. He howled as she greasily slithered out of his hands and sank her fangs in one of his calves. Shaking his leg violently, Spike dislodged her, kicking her so that she bounced off the wall in a shower of framed photographs accumulated over a lifetime. Using the wall for leverage, she flew snarling at Spike in midair, catching him across the chest so that they both hit the one window in the room in a crash of breaking glass, pulling the curtains as well as a vase with a fraying silk orchid in it with them as they fell, a random framed picture reflexively gripped in Spike's hand as snarling, they tumbled end over end five floors down, landing in the shaggy, unkempt mass of the neglected orange tree which dominated that corner of the back parking lot.

Looking up as just as the back of his head hit the gnarled trunk buried deep in the thorny, fragrant tree, Spike saw the open-mouthed faces of Buffy and Dawn leaning out of the now lit window of room 515 accompanied by the approaching sound of sirens.


	16. Chapter 16

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Back Parking Lot, California, 2000_

Tangled in the brutal thorns of a neglected orange tree, Spike came to face to face with Nuss Ginger, who was pinned beneath him to the tune of the "Fire Alarm Rag".

With a loud crack, the tangled branches gave way, sending them further into the heart of the tree, sending tiny green oranges and broken blossoms pattering to the ground below.

She stank of overheated kitchen dumpster – something Spike recognized from having stood smoking beside the Center's on more than one Wednesday night after being chipped before slipping in for the night's poker game with Gatemouth and whoever else could totter their way into the one-armed trumpeter's Spartan room on the third floor. But beneath it, beneath him, his body finally recognized what fifty years had nearly obliterated.

"Ginger O'Reilly, is that you?"

"Who the Hell do you think you landed on, Rita Hayworth?" She had lost most of the Jersey accent, but the ghost of Betty Boop lingered, and age, plus an entire Virginia tobacco field's worth of cigarettes, had added a soft, throaty rasp to her voice. "And what'd you do to me, you son-of-a-bitch?"

"Took you on a ride to the moon, only, ow, I think I missed." Mind working, Spike shifted, cautiously disentangling one sleeve from a mass of thorns in a shower of broken blossoms and the patter of little green oranges hitting the ground below. "Hang on, pet, I'll get us, ow-ow- _OW_ -Bloody Hell OW! down."

"No, I mean, that night. Back in L.A." Whimpering, Ginger shifted, causing the mass of branches to creak ominously.

Spike froze, "Don't. Move. You'll land us on top of a pile of natural wooden stakes and that'll be the end of the dance for both of us."

Despite this latest awkward (AND painful) predicament, it had possibilities.

Ginger might be a few decades past due, but it could work. He could take her back to L.A., use her as bait… nobody would suspect a little old lady and her attentive grandson, she'd make the kills… and the chip wouldn't… he could finally get out of Sunnydale… get a decent meal… CRACK!

"Oh, balls."

The next set of branches gave way, plummeting them the branch and fruit littered ground. Ginger writhed beneath him, screaming, "Get OFF! That bastard janitor broke my ribs when he kicked me to death yesterday!" She worked her shoulders, and then stilled, blood trickling out of her mouth, "Oh no. I'm stuck on something." She added in a very, very quiet voice. "I feel it against my heart."

"Shhhh!" Spike froze again, as with sirens blaring, a Sunnydale Fire Department truck lumbered past, adding to the raucous din of the alarm, spearing red flashes of light through the branches of the tree.

"I don't think anybody knows we're in here." Ginger whispered, "Could you at least get off of me? I may be a vampire now, but I'm still over 70 with broken ribs - and you're a LOT heavier than I remember!"

A police car cruised past. After cautiously rolling off of Ginger, he knelt beside where she lay impaled atop a pile of broken branches. He started pulling smaller thorns out of Ginger as she mumbled under her breath up at the sky through the branches overhead, "Shhh, pet, no need to talk. We'll, heh, have PLENTY of time for that later once I get you out of here."

"It doesn't hurt as so much when I talk… oh God! That one must have been at least three inches long!"

They'd go down to L.A., maybe New York. Once she'd recovered from the fall, he'd go all out…

"You do remember what happened the time we, _you_ , Sired another older woman…?" said William nervously from somewhere behind Spike's shoulder. The embarrassing little prat had been around a lot more since Spike'd been chipped. "It ended badly."

"Shut up. This time it'll be different!" Spike snarled.

"Who _are_ you talking to?" Ginger lifted her head slightly, looking at him in the broken shadows. "Uh, oh, I shouldn't have moved, I felt whatever it is I'm stuck on shift around inside of me – Oh God, it hurts... it hurts... it hurts..."

"Hold still." Spike paused as he groped around under Ginger, getting a better grip on a length of thorns that had been driven into her shoulder by their shared fall, "This is going to be bad."

"Not half as bad as you landing on top of me."

"Shhh, shhh, you'll be all right..." Spike gave a twisting yank, Ginger silently convulsed in and out of demon face, worn little hands twitching. "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it, pet?" He tossed aside the bloody, spiny mass, "Hang on, here's another… it's really in there." Ginger sucked in another painful, whooping breath when his questing fingers gripped the second mass of citrus thorns driven into her arm, trying not to cough as her caved-in chest collapsed further in on itself, snapped ribs grinding against each other, digging into her lungs, "No need to breathe if it hurts that bad, love, you don't need to." Spike paused as in the background the fire alarm suddenly went quiet. He lowered his voice, " You want to take a break? This next one feels like it's gone halfway into your hip. It's one of those thorns with thorns on. I'm going to have to break it... dig it out later…"

He'd get her something decent to wear, take her to the best places… they'd share her kills…

Spike could sense William rolling his eyes at this, "This will end in tears."

"Sod off." Spike muttered.

"Believe me, I would if I could, honey. Anyway I know it's been a while, but is there any of that Mickey Finn left?" Ginger gave him a wry smile, head at an unnatural angle against the broken limbs of the tree that enfolded them in broken shadow.

"Yeah, well, not really, but this'll do." Spike paused where he was kneeling, dug into his back pocket and pulled out his hip flask, "Bourbon." Thorns stabbing into his knees, he propped Ginger's head up just enough so she could drink, most of it dribbling down her chin.

Ginger relaxed into his arm, looking back up at the dark sky, evening traffic ghosting past on the nearby street in the blessed silence, "I saw what you did to that whore the night we met. Why didn't you do me like you did her?" she whispered, balanced on the edge of pain, "I kept waiting for you to stuff me in a trash can in some back alley… like I wanted you to… but all you were was kind."


	17. Chapter 17

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Back Parking Lot, California, 2000_

Anticipating an all-night road trip to L.A. and relative freedom, Spike absently listened to Ginger as he disentangled her from the thorns and impaling broken branches, William nervously eavesdropping somewhere in the back of his mind.

She had been waiting for her date to show up – some big dumb mook of a Marine with a pocket full of money badly in need of emptying that she'd met the night before — when Spike, William, whomever, sat down uninvited at her table in a stolen RAF uniform, bought her a drink that wasn't beer, and then asked her to dance.

At least he was a better dancer than her Marine - even if he was kind of a sissy.

 _"I am not!"_

Hands temporarily stilled, Spike glared down at Ginger. She giggled, and then tried not to cough as Spike got back to work, unlit menthol dangling from the corner of his mouth at a petulant angle.

His British accent had been intriguing, once she understood what he was saying – she'd never heard one outside of a movie palace.

Back at the table they'd shared a smoke or two, drinks between them before he excused himself, something about seeing a man about a dog or something or other. She'd got up to powder her nose herself, and noticed something going on outside the back door near the ladies room, which was open because of the July heat.

With the orchestra echoing down the hall behind her, she had crept closer, expecting a mugging in progress. Only it was him, Willy, ripping some back alley Bessie's throat out.

Fascinated, she'd watched from the shadows, all the way down to the ash can burial before scurrying back to her table. Finally, a way out… only to wind up back on the dance floor in the arms of her tardy Marine.

"He was delicious."

"Really?"

"Just as well. I saved you from a screaming case of the clap."

"Gee whiz, my knight in shining armor." Ginger winced.

"Tarnished. I'm evil, or haven't you noticed?"

"Oh, I noticed, all right. Still, 'O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!'"

"Bloody Hell, that was from Shakespare's _King John_ , how would—"

(William looked up from where he was sulking somewhere behind the chip, "Goodness me, you mean this could mean real adult conversation?")

Ginger interrupted, "Ma was a rabbi's daughter, right off the boat from Saxony who married my shanty Irishman of a dad. It's how she taught herself to read English – she could already read it in German. She said that even a goil from Joisy needed an eddication – I didn't stand a chance. It was either marriage, Nursing School or become a school teacher and I hate kids."

"You might change your mind once you've tasted one."

"Right." Ginger hissed through clenched teeth as he pulled another thorn with thorns out of her side, "How about Dickenson? "A death-blow is a life-blow to some, Who, till they died —"

"Did not alive become; Who, had they lived, had died, but when, They died, vitality begun." Spike finished, grinning, "What _about_ Emily Dickenson?"

"Just, ohhhhhhhh, ungh, curious!" Ginger panted softly, "Next time, warn me – I discovered Dickenson on my own, found a torn up copy at a second hand book store for two bits when I was fifteen. Didn't have candy or ride the bus for a month so I could buy it!"

(William came closer, "Dickenson?")

"Hmmmm, yeah." At this rate, there would be plenty of time to roll her up in a blanket, thorns and all once he got the ones pinning her in place removed, lay her out in the back seat of the DeSoto, and remove the rest in some cheap motel room along the Interstate – watch T.V., let things heal up before L.A…"

"I had to hide it." Ginger murmured.

"Hide what, pet?" Spike said absently as he took a pull at the hip flash himself with bloody hands, thinking, don't bother to stop off at the crypt, just get out of here. Wash the dust of this shit-hole off and forget it ever happened…

"The nuns took my copy of Eliot's "The Waste Land", so I hid Emily in a torn off prayer book cover…"

"You mean, "Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not speak…"?" Spike screwed the cap of the flask back on, pocketing it in the cramped space, feeling the hard edges of something small and flat as he did so, but dismissing it for later.

""…and my eyes failed, I was neither, Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence." The nuns claimed it wasn't suitable for a nice Catholic girl. I don't think they understood it." Ginger shifted, coughing, "I really didn't understand it either until Robert was killed – I just liked the way the words felt in my mouth..."

"Who?" After that, teach her to hunt, start over, forget Sunnydale ever happened… maybe go back to England...

"My twin. After I buried him, I kept every letter ma sent me unopened in a shoebox because I was afraid to open them, because I'd failed them both… you had blood in your mustache, and your breath smelled like a battlefield."

"Shaved it off. Dru didn't like it. Said it was like kissing a broom only nastier – hold still, "

"I thought I smelled another woman on you. You were vibrating that night."

"What the Hell do you mean, vibrating?"

"Women can sense these things." Ginger closed her eyes before whispering, "Rage poured off of you in waves. I wanted those waves to kill me." She laughed, coughed, " Oh God, I'd almost forgotten about what's touching my heart, shouldn't have laughed – God that hurt! Anyway, I tugged on the hem of Death's robe, only he turned around and gave me a wedding night.." She feebly scrabbled around beside her with her right hand, flipping over the remains of the shabby fake orchid they'd brought down with them in their fight, "Complete with an orchid. I'd never seen one except in pictures – they don't give refinery worker's daughters things that nice in Bayonne."

"Yeah, right."

Ginger continued, "When I went up to your room that night, I thought it was some sort of sick joke. I'm a nurse, I know about the kinks men get themselves into, but this was something I'd never heard of – so I played along - hoping you'd finally get it over with!"

"Mmmmm, right." Stop off at the nearest truck plaza along the Interstate, lure in a lot lizard with a handful of cash, let Ginger make the kill, clean up the leftovers… Spike's stomach growled… just have to get her untangled enough to make a quick escape…

"When you bit down on my neck, the pain stopped." Ginger closed her eyes, "It doesn't matter now, but I was alive for the for the first time since Robert died like a rat at Pearl Harbor, and when I woke up alone the next day with your bite on my neck and a broken window beside me, I walked away once more among the dead."

("At last, adult conversation!" William was all but dancing in the dark of Spike's mind.)

"How do you feel pet, think you can sit up?"

Ginger nodded in the broken shadows, so he slid his arm under her shoulders, sleeve catching on the thorns and splinters from their shared fall.

"This'll hurt more than all the others, so, on the the count of three... one…" He braced himself, "Two." Ginger stiffened and then relaxed, "Three!" He pulled her up, causing the broken branch pinning her from below to pull out with a wet sucking noise.

Ginger gasped, fingers digging into his arms, swallowing a scream.

They sat there, arms around each other, panting, little green oranges rolling around them on the rough ground as Spike rocked her soothingly.

Finally, Ginger said in a very, very small raspy whisper Spike almost didn't catch, "I'm hungry. Fatass and her sticky-fingered murderous boyfriend didn't last long."

"Don't worry, I have something in the cooler in the back of my car until we can get somebody fresh."

"I was thinking about that little girl who's throwing the party in the lobby."

Without thinking, Spike abruptly slammed Ginger backwards into the ground, where the broken branch glistened wetly in the half-light of the rising moon and the security light.


	18. Chapter 18

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Back Parking Lot, California, 2000_

("I told you so." William said sadly somewhere from behind Spike's chip.")


	19. Chapter 19

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, Back Parking Lot, California, 2000_

Eventually, Spike crawled out from under the untidy orange tree, shook the dust out the coat of his stolen suit beneath the the cheap glare of the parking lot sodium lamps, and stood lighting a menthol for a very long time before blowing out a long stream of rings without even seeing them.

Pocketing his lighter, he pulled out whatever it was that he'd noticed earlier, and studied a framed faded photo of a slightly blurred man in a RAF uniform with a pencil-thin mustache, arm around a laughing girl with an unruly mass of curls wearing a Navy uniform taken a long time ago and very far away in the photo booth of a penny arcade that was doubtlessly now an L.A. parking lot.

He dropped it to the pavement with a clatter, walked to the DeSoto, which was parked beside the Center's kitchen dumpster, opened the door, and sat down in the front seat, an attempt at "Mood Indigo" wafting out of the Center's lobby at him.


	20. Chapter 20

_Sunnydale Assisted Living Center, California, 2000_

Stolen coat draped over the open car door, Spike sat smoking through "Mood Indigo" in his shirtsleeves, watching the slowly emerging stars through the paint-smeared windshield, a waxing gibbous moon barely over the jagged horizon.

Inside the Center, the hijacked Junior High Jazz Band was now attempting "Serenade in Blue." The brunette giving it her all behind the mike wasn't half bad.

As "Serenade" eased into "String of Pearls" Spike flipped the butt of the menthol onto the asphalt, where it glowed unheeded as he stood up, slid back into his coat, gritty ash and broken glass lining the bottoms of the pockets, and slammed the car door shut behind him before walking in the back door of the Center.

Where, with thorns and broken glass in his hair and Buffy glowering at him from beside the punch bowl which now only held punch, in a stolen suit that made him look like the lone survivor of a brutal moth attack, Spike defiantly took Dawn by the hand, teaching her the steps of a dance he'd have rather led her older sister through, tossing her high, catching her as she spun, inches before hitting the floor to yet another request of "In The Mood".

Just as he once had a small, lively redhead with a voice like Betty Boop's, in a place never to be found again.


	21. Chapter 21

_Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California, December 7, 2000_

Grumbling because she seemed to be the only one physically capable of emptying a trash can, Cordelia noticed something strange on her way to the dumpster in the alley behind the slowly rotting hulk of what had once been one of Los Angeles's premier luxury hotels.

It wasn't a threatening kind of strange, just strange.

And sort of beautiful.

The former Varsity cheerleader and popular girl at any cost paused, staring down at the little scattering of wilting orange blossoms and broken glass, their scent taking her back to the mansion she had grown up in before her father's various shady deals had caught up with them all.

In the center lay a single white orchid.

Cordelia knew it was an orchid because her mother had used orchids as party decorations, having them shipped in from Hawaii by the dozens the night before, so that everything looked like fairyland, deluxe edition, as she got ready for school.

She knelt, office wastebasket set aside, the soles of her favorite Jimmy Choos (which she'd managed to slip out in her handbag, when her father's mansion had been foreclosed, contents and all) grinding unheeded in the grit scattered around it. Cautiously she pulled a used drinking straw out of the trash and poked at the exotic intruder with it, expecting it to maybe leap snarling from the pavement and bite her or something.

But, it was only an orchid.

And because it was pretty, and because it came with it's own set of memories for Cordelia, and because it would be a shame to let such an expensive thing languish unseen in a back alley, she picked it up, and put it on the corner of her desk, floating in a wineglass she'd found behind the dusty bar in the Hyperion's echoing cavern of a ballroom.

Where it sat admired but slowly fading for a week, until it too, wound up in the dumpster out back.


End file.
